Maeglin, sometimes called Lomión, had always been terrified of heights. Perhaps it was a natural fear, perhaps it was the clear memory of watching his father (who he hated then and hated still, but nonetheless) fall to his death fighting, screaming his defiance until the rocks ended that, broke his body. He could still remember looking down, the way it looked at the bottom, sprawled limply across the crags.

But the fact remained that he hated heights, avoided edges, kept away from cliffs and mountaintops. They made him dizzy, giddy, and sick.

How ironic, the thought occurred to him now. How incredibly ironic the whole thing was.

He'd known Morgoth was coming. Felt it in his bones. And knew it was time to move. But the time for begging and cajoling and courting was over. Idril would never listen to him, she would never give him anything more than disdain and hatred while she was here with Tuor to blind her.

No, he would take her out of the city by force, just in case. So she would not be caught in the fall. He knew where to find her, and it was easy to break into her room, easy to bind her hands and drag her up the stairs and out with him, onto the cliffs that would lead them down to the plains, and safety.

She fought him, though. Maeglin hadn't expected that. Fought and howled and screamed, and he tried to yell at her not to be stupid, but the rising wind blew his words away and she was going to take them both off the edge (that he cringed away from, terrified) so he gripped her neck and forced her down and snarled that if she didn't be silent he would kill her, he would, too, and he didn't know that the look in his eyes glittered with madness or that the edge of his voice crept with it, but she was silent.

It might have been all right then, but he had forgotten something. He'd forgotten about Tuor.

His first blow took Maeglin just above the ear on the right side and he went to his knees, startled, head spinning and bright flashes before his eyes. And before he could move the second strike shattered his shoulder and he screamed, whirling propelled by fury, and flung himself at the man he hated, hated, hated with everything he had.

Tuor caught him as easily as if he were a twig. Maeglin felt his ribs break, snap snap snap and felt more than heard his furious roar. His collarbone went too, and then even as he fought strong arms flung him out, and there was nothing beneath his feet but air, the edge suddenly very far away.

And that was when it occurred to him.

This is how my father died, and then just as quickly, how ironic. How laughably ironic that I spent my entire life trying not to be him and now…

And now.

How ironic.

And he had long enough to feel himself falling, to contemplate how it would feel when he landed, and to laugh, just once, the only time he ever had, because suddenly everything was just…funny.

The rocks splintered him. He left most of his brilliant mind on one rock and the rest of his sullen, broken body a little ways away. The passing of Maeglin, son of Eol, passed largely unremarked, as his father before him.

It was fitting.